Growing up, I loved Westerns. I was a devoted fan of U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon from “Gunsmoke” and the Cartwrights of “Bonanza.” And like them, I would often save the day with my plastic six-shooters when my backyard was under attack by bloodthirsty bad guys.
A lot of kids grew up with similar fantasies. The Wild West mythos is as American as apple pie.
I wish it wasn’t. I figure our weird national obsession with guns is partly rooted in the Wild West savior-with-a-gun mentality, and is therefore part of the reason we have gun troubles in this country that other nations with saner, more grown-up gun policies simply don’t.
That mentality was literally all over the grounds of our state Capitol recently when “open carry” enthusiasts, or ammosexuals if you prefer (I’m trying to be nicer these days by not calling them gun nuts but it’s hard), with assault rifles, six-shooters, and other weapons of mass destruction gathered for what one wag called their annual “Look, I Own a Gun Day.”
It was quite the affair. A newspaper account mentioned a female attendee with two, single-action revolvers strapped to her legs “cowboy style,” as she described it, and a belt of bullets wrapped around her waist.
“We’re trying to keep our rights from being trampled into the ground,” she said. (There were no tramplers in sight, by the way. There seldom are. The truth is almost no one – despite hysterical bleating to the contrary by the NRA and its followers – proposes taking guns away from Americans. People simply want common sense limits and restrictions. How dare they.)
She also didn’t mention anyone else’s “right” to not feel afraid or even creeped out, which they were. As a friend of mine put it, “It’s tough to enjoy a grilled cheese when a dude stands next to you (at a downtown restaurant) with an AR-15 strapped over his jacket.”
I’m shocked – shocked, I say – that he didn’t feel safe and secure. That’s how gun enthusiasts say everyone should feel with them around, after all. Their motto is “The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
And yet almost no one else believes that. Instead, most people feel unnerved in the presence of gun-toters who aren’t cops, and with good reason: They don’t know the toter and whether he or she is a good guy or a guy who’s about to commit a whole lot of bad.
They also don’t believe that some rinky-dink Marshall Dillon-wannabe is going to save the day if shooting starts.
And why would they? Mass shootings have become nearly a weekly occurrence in the U.S., which would suggest that the good guys with guns aren’t doing such a bang-up job after all.
It would also suggest that maybe – just maybe – the NRA and its minions are wrong about guns. Maybe the proliferation of guns in recent decades – especially those that can spit bullets faster than an army of grade schoolers can spit watermelon seeds – has something to do with the number and lethality of mass shootings, and if so maybe part of the solution is tighter gun control, not looser.
Sounds crazy, but there is Wild West precedence that restricting guns leads to safer streets.
After all, when gunplay got out of control in Dodge City, the first thing Marshall Dillon would do is require visitors to check-in their guns.
This is actually true, by the way. Here are several stories about how the Wild West had tougher gun control than we do today:
- Gun laws were tougher in old Tombstone – L.A. Times
- Did the Wild West have tougher gun control than we do today? – HuffPost Politics
- Even Tombstone had gun laws – Politico
If you watch a lot of westerns, which my husband and I do, you will see quite a few things that happen today that happened back in them thar days. It all comes around.
Everyone had guns in the “Wild West” . You saw a guy with a gun and didn’t think twice about it. If you had a problem with somebody, you generally fought with your fists. Most people respected each other because they all had guns. I think the guns were used as a last resort, not the first.
Likely true but that doesn’t mean we should do it today. Haven’t we evolved even a little bit?
Yes, but not necessarily in a positive way.
I have left the room, businesses, or excused myself when someone presents or is wearing a gun…even if I know the person. They are just that scary. I’m sure most of it is because I have never fired a hand gun and we tend to fear that which we do not know. Still, I’ll pass. I’d rather have someone respect me for who I am and not for what I am wearing. I’ve read the stats from other countries that limit gun use and you are right, we are not safer; this link clearly illustrates the stats http://www.cfr.org/society-and-culture/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons/p29735 The comparisons are startling.
Agree. I grew up in a gun culture in the U.P. and was a fair shot myself, but I think we should be evolving forward not falling backward into a place where our interpersonal relationships are along the lines of MAD (mutually assured destruction) policies that the U.S./Russia have practiced for decades. Aren’t we better than that?
That is called hoplophobia, the irrational fear of guns. But I can remember when youths carried shotguns to high school on the opening day of small game or other hunting seasons. My, how the public perception of the shooting sports has changed. Probably mostly because of the hyperbole of modern instant news media.
I can also remember reading about how many dozen deer hunters died during the season 10-20 years ago. But how many have read that nobody died in Michigan during the recent two year’s deer seasons? Is our news problem worse than our gun problem?
Most shootings are in places like Chicago, which have pretty severe gun control laws already in place. I contend that we have serious race, drug, gang, and poverty problems. Screaming “gun control” is evading our real problems.
Louise says ” this link clearly illustrates the stats http://www.cfr.org/society-and-culture/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons/p29735 The comparisons are startling.”
That chart is nonsense, carefully cherry-picked selected countries. The US is way down the list if you look at all the countries. We are somewhere in the middle, around #100 of of over 200 countries. We do have more guns than most, but are average in homicides. Demonstrating that tight gun control is ineffective in most of the world.
I don’t know how I’d react if someone showed up toting a gun (AR 15) but I’m sure I wouldn’t stick around. My son and brothers own guns but for hunting. I’m sure it makes these people feel like they are bad asses carrying guns in public in such dramatic fashion. They are no better than terrorists instilling fear and intimidation to those around them. My brother is an officer and has to carry, but he’s never obnoxious nor does anyone ever see it. Why they even sell guns like AR 15 is crazy, there is no need for the public to own one of these!
Me either. I was in line at the mall at Christmas with a guy with a Glock strapped to his hip. I left.
Not going to get in a discussion on the “assault” style weapons. They just look different than your average “looking” hunting gun. Same mechanics just cosmetically different generally.
As far as people openly carrying, I think it’s foolish personally. Does it bother me to see it, no, do I think they’re stupid for letting everybody know they have it ? Yes. I think what they’re trying to do, some of them anyways is trying to get people used to it. You don’t notice a police officer wearing his because you’re use to it, and I think that’s what some are trying to accomplish. Carrying a rifle in public seems a little weird, but I think that’s just at certain events to try and prove a point. Personally I don’t feel any different out in public seeing someone with a gun on their body. Feel no safer or worried. But I can see where others would. But the rights are there if someone wants to do it.
“Same mechanics just cosmetically different generally.”
Yes. It’s an extra hundred bucks or so to make it into a streetsweeper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U6tORrODJE
What exactly is the sporting application of this thing? Aside from hunting zombies?
We’ve come a ways from Mort Neff and his old .30-30.
Jeanette, I know exactly how I would respond. Guy I just met pulled an M16 (full automatic version) of the AR15 out of his trunk at a remote cabin. I swear I could feel almost everyone’s sphincter tighten. I asked politely and he handed it to me, popped the clip, cleared it,… everyone there that wanted to took a turn target practicing. It’s just a rifle
I just read Larry McMurtry’s The Last Kind Words Saloon and discovered Wyatt Earp couldn’t shoot straight, Doc Holiday had to borrow a shot gun from Wells Fargo because carrying a revolver was uncomfortable and neither one was a “quick draw”. Ah, the romance of the Wild West!
Love McMurtry. Lonesome Dove is an all-time fave.
Glad you mentioned Marshal Dillon restricting gun toters. In some movies even the saloon owners made them turn in the guns before they could have a drink or “romance” the ladies.
“Ammosexuals” is a great word! Did you invent it?
My thought exactly! Going to have to get that into a conversation.
Mine too! Even if Andy didn’t invent it, major props for introducing that great word to his fans!
The Wild West was both then & now, but then was a much different time. My Dad & I watched Western TV shows & movies, plus I had a Dale Evans cowgirl outfit with guns. I also had lots of guns around the house when I was married. And still, it has never ever crossed my mind to buy a gun & shoot somebody.
Andrew says “Maybe the proliferation of guns in recent decades – especially those that can spit bullets faster than an army of grade schoolers can spit watermelon seeds – has something to do with the number and lethality of mass shootings, ”
Nonsense. Those guns were outlawed way back during Prohibition.
I don’t understand the fear of openly carried weapons. That’s not entirely true, I understand the logic or psychological reasons, I juse don’t have that same fear.
The vast majority of Americans have never been robbed at gun point, have never had to attack an intruder in their home and have rarely been in a situation where a gun could possibly be needed by them in a defensive manner.
The NRA’s illogical reasoning is that everybody should locked and loaded, just in case…but if a criminal is going to target you, then they have the distinct advantage of surprise over you.
So unless an “ammosexual” intends on using every waking moment to warily eye everybody they come into contact with, with their tense fingers itching over the trigger, having a gun on you or in your home is useless. And what a horrible way to live each and every day!
Most personally owned guns are used in sudden violent situations within their own families and friends. Situations that could have been easily defused if a weapon was nowhere around to be easily used in anger.
Simply put, our American infatuation with guns has to stop and we have to begin to create sane, logical gun-control laws.